Will had been more than cooperative at the idea of playing with new friends during the day instead of being with his mom, Cassie thought. Of course, he was six now, not nearly so interested in her whereabouts and spending time with her as he had been at five. Every year seemed to bring more longing for independence from him, and made it clearer to her that boys needed their dads, whenever it was possible.
She needed to tell Will. Jake hadn’t pressured her about it, though he had to have it on his mind, she thought as they pulled away from the police officer’s house in Jake’s car. She appreciated the way he’d handled this.
Perfectly.
No surprise there.
They met up with the team in a parking lot farther from her aunt’s house than the trailhead where they’d met yesterday. But Cassie knew from the time she’d spent living and hiking in Raven Pass that it was basically the third point of a triangle, with the other two being her aunt’s house and the trailhead from the day before. She hadn’t seen any maps, but she assumed the search team must have some since they’d talked about breaking into areas to search.
“So are you guys still thinking my idea could be right, that she hiked from her house on one of her normal trails and then something happened?”
Jake didn’t answer right away. Cassie turned to look at him, noticing that the expression on his face was nothing short of grim.
“You don’t think it was an accident though, her disappearance,” she surmised, not needing verbal confirmation anymore. His facial expression had given her enough.
“They’re working it as a murder investigation. That’s what Levi Wicks went over again when he called.”
“He called you and talked about it?”
“Yes, he’s my friend and he knew I wanted to know.”
“Well she is my aunt, so you should have told me. I would think you’d have a basic sense of decency and know that without needing to be told.” Cassie felt her voice rising, felt her mind telling her to stop talking before she dug herself any further into a hole with Jake, who had really shown her a lot of grace since she’d been back in town.
“I would have thought you’d have the decency to actually say goodbye before leaving town and not coming back for over half a decade, but here we are.” His voice had lowered, but it wasn’t intimidating. Jake had never yelled at her and apparently wouldn’t start even now. But it was flat. Devoid of any warmth.
Cassie was sorry for what she’d done, but she’d already said so. It hurt for him to throw it in her face like this, and she wondered if this would evolve into some kind of never-ending penance. Cassie made mistakes, and she apologized or learned from them, and then she moved on. She knew this particular mistake was bigger than most, and she knew Jake had a right to be angry, that moving on from it might take a little longer. But she hoped he wouldn’t keep using it as punishment.
Wasn’t that the whole problem with Jake in the first place though, his inability to move on? His well-sunk roots into Raven Pass soil made it impossible to go on to the next adventure, like Cassie had always longed to do.
He didn’t like change. He’d probably never get past this, the hurt she’d caused him, either. For the last few days she’d wondered how he could so easily forgive her and act like the past hadn’t happened. In a way it had seemed too good to be true, but it was Jake and he’d always seemed that way to her.
Now at least she knew. He hadn’t forgiven her.
She met his eyes, nodded once. At least she knew where they stood. “Let’s go.”
He climbed out of the vehicle without another word and they started hiking, through the big meadow where the trailhead started, and toward the tall spruce trees that seemed to swallow up the trail without a hint of where it was going. But Cassie knew the way, even if she and Jake got separated.
She’d be fine. With or without him.
Just like she always had been.
Jake didn’t mean to be setting a pace worthy of some kind of sports-conditioning program, but he’d always worked off frustrations with exercise, and frustration didn’t begin to describe what he was feeling right now. With himself, with Cassie.
He squeezed his eyes shut for an instant and tried to pray but he was still too upset, all his boiling emotions too close to the surface.
One foot in front of the other. Another step and another, his hiking boots pounding the ground. Cassie was upset about her aunt. She was in danger, which wasn’t something she was accustomed to. There were all kinds of excuses and explanations for her behavior and the hurtful words she’d said, but had he accepted any of that? No, he’d just exploded in a low-voiced sentence of words designed to hurt.
They’d hurt her. And he was sorry.
She wasn’t ready to hear that yet though, so he just punished himself with a pace that made him more out of breath than he’d been in years. She kept up fine, and he wondered what she had been doing to keep in such good shape.
Not that it surprised him. She’d always been able to match him and she’d never been the kind of woman who made Jake feel like he had to wait for her. No, Cassie could handle herself fine in any environment and it was part of why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place.
She kept pace with him for another ten minutes, as they wound through the spruce on a side trail so narrow he wasn’t sure he’d have found it without her direction. It was then he started to notice that she was getting out of breath and he slowed. Rain had begun to fall; some was even finding its way down through the tree canopy.
“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing she’d know what for. She’d always been able to read his mind, or at least it had seemed that way, and with how little had changed between the two of them, he suspected that hadn’t changed either. The raindrops on the tree limbs were the only sound for a few seconds until she finally spoke up.
Cassie nodded. “Me too.”
Jake stopped walking and gently turned Cassie to face him, his hands on her upper arms. “You’ve already apologized for what you did.” He looked her in the eyes. “Another apology isn’t needed and I’m sorry I made you feel as though it was.”
He’d only wanted to face her so she could see his expression and know how sincere he was about her not needing to apologize anymore. He hadn’t meant to fling an accusation at her, and he intended to keep a check on the emotions that had fed that outburst. She didn’t deserve that.
The two of them facing each other like this had made the world almost still, except the gentle sound of the rain, the way it was falling on the curls that usually edged around Cassie’s face when she was wearing a ponytail. It was dangerous, feeling like he and Cassie were the only two people on earth, and the only two people in this stretch of Alaskan woods.
Chemistry had never been an issue between them. They’d always had more than Jake had known how to handle.
Jake caught his breath, didn’t move. He knew all the reasons he should be careful not to give her the impression they could pick up where they left off because they couldn’t.
Cassie moved closer, her eyes on his lips, her chin tilted up.
Her lips met his and it was like all the yesterdays were gone and they were back, six years ago, lips touching just like this. Gentle, tentative and then bolder.
She’d been his once and this kiss said that she still was, somehow, despite the mistakes, the years, the regrets.
Jake kissed her with every ounce of himself that had missed her over the years, and she responded.
Nothing had ended between them then at all. They’d been put on pause.
Jake slowed his kiss, had to make himself pull away, because this wasn’t the time or place. They separated and he had to catch his breath.
“If you apologize for that I may never speak to you again.” Cassie’s voice was breathless too and Jake squeezed his eyes shut, loving the sound of it, the memory of her lips on his.
“Later. We have to talk about that later,” he said quietly.
Cassie didn’t answer.
“Seriously, Cassie.”
She finally nodded. “Okay. We’ll talk later.”
Jake swallowed hard, unable to formulate any more words at the moment. His train of thought had certainly narrowed, to Cassie and loving her, kissing her, spending the rest of his life with her...
His mind tried to caution him from letting his heart carry his thoughts away because he’d tried this once and had never been the same after. But at the moment he had no desire to listen to the caution. Instead he grabbed her hand, squeezed it gently while he met her eyes and then nodded, like a promise.
And hoped that this one would turn out better than the promises they’d made last time.
Cassie couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Jake had kissed her. No, she realized, as she ducked around a bush of salmonberries, she’d kissed Jake. He hadn’t moved away, and he’d been a willing...participant...in the entire kiss, but she’d started it.
Oh, how she’d started it. And with it she’d restarted all kinds of worries and fears in her mind. It had been easier, in a way, to pretend the spark between the two of them had died, that she’d killed it all those years ago, but clearly that was a lie.
Cassie just didn’t know what to do about it, here and now today. So talking about it wasn’t something that was high on her list of priorities, but she knew Jake was right. They had to talk.
If she’d talked to him before she left, like he’d mentioned earlier, how different would things have turned out? Would they have really had a happily-ever-after, living in Jake’s parents’ house together, married like they’d planned, with Will and a little sibling maybe? Her heart squeezed and she had to blink back the tears edging over the corners of her eyes. You couldn’t go back. Wasn’t that what she’d been telling herself for years now?
Except it almost looked like she had the chance now. Would she take it? Could she?
Cassie felt adrift and wondered if this was one of those times that Jake would pray and if she could learn to.
Um, God, we could use help figuring out what to do, she tried as a tentative test.
She didn’t hear anything back, but she did feel her shoulders relax a little. Huh.
They hiked on without talking, taking game trail after game trail, winding so deep into the woods that Cassie was getting nervous and hoping she could find their way back out. This part of the woods had been one of her favorite spots as a child, for the way the wilderness seemed to swallow a person whole. For that same reason now, Cassie felt her muscles tensing, her heartbeat growing faster. Fear had crept out of the corners of her mind, where it had been temporarily banished while she’d been kissing Jake, and had taken a more front and center spot now. It washed over her and she wasn’t able to stop or even slow it. Goose bumps shivered down her arms and she could almost smell fear.
No, not fear. Something else.
“Jake.” She stopped walking, her nose registering immediately what took her mind a few moments to realize.
The smell was decay. And how many people walked this way or used this trail?
She’d feared her aunt was dead and had wondered if the hurt could actually get worse if it was really true. It could. It did. Despair hung on her like a too heavy blanket, scratchy and hard.
And then Cassie moved to the side of the trail to throw up. Jake kept walking.
“Stay there,” he told her, pulling his .44 from his chest holster and handing it to her once she’d stood up and regained a tiny bit of equilibrium. “Use this if you need to.”
He had taught her to shoot with either this one or one very similar when they were in high school. Cassie nodded and sat down, a few feet away from where she’d been sick, in the shelter of some berry bushes.
Her aunt had loved salmonberries. That was probably why this had been one of her favorite trails. When Cassie was a kid, they used to walk this trail and pick them together, and then her aunt would make jam.
Her aunt was gone.
Why had Cassie left?
It was too late to fix any of it, her regrets about the time spent away, all the years she’d said she’d visit one day and hadn’t. Cassie had let her aunt down, let herself down.
Tears threatened to overtake her, but fear kept them at bay for now. Because one other question wouldn’t leave her alone no matter how much she tried to think about other aspects of what was going on.
If Jake and the police were right and her aunt hadn’t died of natural causes, then someone had wanted her dead.
Why?
And if they’d done that as intended, why would they come after Cassie? She had nothing they could want, barely any money in her savings, and what she would inherit from her aunt amounted to the tiny cottage on half an acre. Nothing worth killing over.
It didn’t make sense.
Cassie lowered her head and cried.